Rainforest(A Cacophany of Sound)
by Yggdrasil'sRoots
Summary: Stiles and Derek like the rain. Hot chocolate, fluff, and torrential rain.


_**So, I wrote some blushing idiots. Enjoy.**_

_**Disclaimer: I own so little, it's laughable, really.**_

The rain is coming down harder now, Stiles thinks.

He taps the brakes of the jeep lightly, slowing the already snail's pace of his car to a stop.

Three days of torrential rain, and despite the chill and everyone else's dour mood, Stiles is enjoying the weather. Scott always tells him he's bonkers for liking wet weather, but Stiles usually just grins at him and passes him a controller for the game system.

He's always loved rain. He and his mother used to dance on the driveway the minute the rain started to get really heavy, his dad watching from the relative dryness of the doorway, sometimes venturing out onto the porch.

And he can't ever see something that brought him and his parents so much joy as bad, in any way, even if Stiles always used to get colds afterwards.

Now that his mom is gone, he sits in the conservatory and reads, the peaceful consistent tapping of the rain of the glass roof a comfortable backdrop. Sometimes he doesn't even read, just lies there with his eyes shut, and listens to the rain hitting the panels of the roof noisily. It's one of the few times he feels like his mom isn't completely gone, like he gets to bring some part of her back with the rainfall.

Stiles waits for the light to change, still and calm for once in the quiet of his jeep, her jeep. He never plays music when it rains. The rhythm of the drops makes him calmer than any ADD meds do.

The light changes from red to yellow, and Stiles pulls himself from his memories to shut off the handbrake, a habit leftover from when his dad taught him to drive, and one that he's never managed to shake. Lydia always makes fun of him for using the handbrake at stop lights, but Stiles can't bring himself to care. He pushes his foot down on the accelerator gently, easing the jeep forwards carefully. What used to be a fifteen minute journey turns into thirty, the rain slick roads dangerous, and Stiles curses as he nearly hydroplanes in the parking lot of the grocery store.

Once he's safely parked, he regards the lot calmly, pulls his hood up, and slides out of his car neatly, splashing his way quickly indoors. He breathes a sigh of relief when he makes it under cover, and grabs a basket, easing the slightly damp list out of his back pocket.

_Eggs, milk, bread, real jam (I mean it, Stiles)._

He chuckles at the note his dad has left him, although he does spend a good five minutes deliberating over the sugar percentages in the jams before he decides.

Ten minutes later he pulls away, gradually making his way home-wards. Halfway there, he spots a dark figure in the rain.

He stops next to the figure.

"Need a hand?" The shadowy figure raises its head from the depths of its car, which is currently smoking merrily.

"Stiles?"

"Derek?" They speak in unison.

Derek is soaked. That's Stiles' first thought. The second is that it's a good look on him.

Really good.

Derek's jeans, already tight enough, stubbornly cling to his muscular thighs like a second skin, and his Henley does the same thing with its adjacent skin, making his abs clearly visible through the wet fabric. He's minus his signature piece of clothing, however, and Stiles muses to himself that it's probably in the out of commission camaro. He remembers reading somewhere that water is bad for leather jackets.

And of course the jacket's real leather, this is Derek Hale he's talking about here.

"Do you want a lift somewhere?" Stiles asks tentatively. Derek's typically harsh glare softens into something sort of like surprise.

"I'll get Roscoe's seats wet." He protests weakly. "I can just run home and call a tow." Stiles momentarily reels, because not only does Derek Hale refer to his jeep by _name_ but he doesn't want to get her seats wet?

_Adorable._

He takes a moment to look Derek over, and sees how drenched he truly is. He makes the decision for him.

"Get in the car, sourwolf."

Derek gets in the car.

"Where to, buddy?" Stiles grins at him. Derek shrugs. Stiles grins again as a plan forms. "Wanna hang?" He asks tentatively. Derek twitches.

Stiles scrambles to explain.

"It's just, you live on the other side of town, and Roscoe will take forever to get there in this weather, and even with the whole werewolf thing I figure it isn't pleasant in wet clothes and you could borrow some of mine and I can put yours in the dryer?" Stiles breathes fast for a moment.

"Sure." Derek replies simply. Then he smiles, and _oh my god_ Stiles nearly maybe dies a little, because a grown man should not be that _cute _damn it, and a man that attractive should not smile at Stiles like that if he ever wants to go home _ever_.

_Maybe I'll get to keep him. _ The traitorous thought sneaks past his defences, and he quashes it ruthlessly.

_He isn't a pet._

Instead of embarrassing himself by saying all of that aloud, Stiles taps the accelerator and inches the jeep forward. He's loath to break the silence, and the spell of the rain, but Derek might want music, right?

"Do you want music on?" Derek glances over and shakes his head.

"No, it's okay." He quiets for a minute before piping up again. "Reminds me of before. Before... everything. The rain, I mean."

"Yeah?"

Derek smiles wistfully, like a good memory is swimming through his head.

"Yeah."

Stiles drives slowly for a few minutes before Derek starts talking again.

"There was this one time when I was a kid, I think it was just starting summer. We were having a barbecue, even though Mom was convinced it was going to rain." Derek pauses, swallows thickly and resumes his story. "So we were eating, I think my dad was cooking, and Cora was crawling all over Uncle Peter, she must have been eight? Yeah, eight. So I was maybe eleven and Laura was fourteen and thought that she was the coolest thing since sliced bread, even though she had just cut her hair weirdly and was obsessed with this guy from school. And it just starts tipping down. Mom was smirking at us from under her umbrella and Cora was shrieking, and Laura was taking our baby cousins inside. Twins, just turned two, cutest kids you've ever seen. It's chaos, you know?"

Stiles flicks his indicator on and nods so Derek knows he's listening.

"In the middle of everyone screaming and getting wet and running around, and trying to stop the little kids getting soaked, I'm just standing there getting drenched, and smiling like the biggest idiot in the world." Derek chuckles as Stiles pulls into his driveway. "I think it was the happiest I've been."

"Yeah?" Stiles kills the engine. "I remember something like that with my mom. We used to dance in the rain together when I was little. And she always wore a skirt, even if it was freezing, so I would look up and see the edge of her skirt when she was twirling around above. The rain used to fly off the hem." Stiles sniffs. It's cold, okay?

"You must miss it." Derek says. Stiles thinks he sounds a bit uncomfortable.

"We both miss things, I think." Stiles leans his head against the headrest, looking at Derek from the corner of his eye.

"I remember her, you know." The wolf is watching him calmly.

"Huh?"

"Your mom. She used to volunteer at the library, right? I used to spend a lot of time there, as a kid. The smell of the books helped, back when I was learning to control the shift. She was always cheerful, even when she started getting sick. She was beautiful." Derek looks vulnerable, sharing his memories of someone else's dead mom.

"Yeah, she was." Stiles glances at Derek, who looks really uncomfortable, so he pushes the images of his mom, rain flying from her skirt, dripping and laughing on the porch, out of his head.

"C'mon, sourwolf. Let's get you out of those clothes."

Derek _blushes. _Stiles raises an eyebrow.

"Dude." Shaking his head in amusement, he jiggles the door handle until it unsticks, and follows Derek out into the rain. Neither of them rush for cover, Derek already soaked, and Stiles tipping his face up to the moisture to enjoy its coolness on his face. When Stiles reaches the porch, Derek is still standing in the rain. Stiles makes a face at him.

"What? I'm already wet."

Stiles grins.

"Yes, you are."

Unlocking the door, he shoulders it open and beckons Derek in after him, and then closes the door on the downpour as Derek steps inside. The steady patter of water on the floorboards, falling from Derek's clothes, is the only sound in the house as Stiles toes off his shoes so he doesn't trip over them later.

He'll probably just trip over his own feet instead.

Derek bends down to unlace his boots, and Stiles absolutely does not stare at his ass.

Honest.

Okay, so maybe he stares a bit. What can he say? It's a really good ass. A really, really good, fantastic ass.

"I'll er, get you some dry stuff." He manages to tear his eyes away long enough to be a good host.

"Thanks." Derek looks good, standing in his socks and wet clothes in Stiles' hallway. Stiles climbs the stairs and finds his biggest clothes for Derek; a pair of sweatpants that Stiles never grew into and a shirt that he's half sure is one that he bought too big on purpose because he likes the feel of too big clothes.

"Here." He hands the neat pile to Derek. "Bathroom's upstairs on your left."

"Thanks." Derek disappears upstairs to get changed.

Now Stiles is left to his own thoughts for half a second, he starts over-thinking things, contemplating the fact that if he's cold, then Derek isn't exactly warm even with the werewolf thing.

Hot chocolate is the logical conclusion of that particular thought. Duh. Also he kind of wants to take care of Derek.

He might be a bit of a mother hen.

Okay, he definitely is, but only because Derek's had kind of a shit life the past few years and deserves, at the very least, some hot chocolate that follows Stiles' own personal recipe.

Stiles fishes his super secret absolutely-not-for-you-dad stash of chocolate down from the top of the cupboard, where the sheriff can't find it, and believe him, he's tried, and grabs a couple of mugs, breaking up some chunks of chocolate and dropping them in. Then he fills up the mugs with milk(full fat, no Dad, you can't have it, the two percent is in the fridge), adding a generous shake of cinnamon and a drop of vanilla essence. He microwaves his concoction for a few minutes, until the chocolate is melted enough for him to whisk the mixture into frothy goodness.

Then he adds a shot of whisky to each mug.

Whisking again, he makes sure they haven't got lumps in and sprays a large mountain of whipped cream onto each mug, topping it with a chocolate flake, mini marshmallows, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Derek has come downstairs by now, and is watching him with no small amount of fascination.

"I made hot chocolate." Stiles says stupidly. Then he mentally facepalms.

"I can see that."Derek says indulgently.

Ah, normal service is resumed. Normal, snarky Derek has returned with the warmth brought by warm clothes, and Stiles can't say he's disappointed.

Mostly because he isn't. He likes sarcastic Derek, with his dry wit and sometimes worryingly dark sense of humour. And yeah, maybe he just plain likes Derek.

He might also have a strong desire to get his mouth on...all that. All that being Derek's abs.

But he doesn't say any of that, he just wordlessly slides a mug across the counter towards Derek, who, now that he's paying attention, looks insanely good in Stiles' clothes.

But he doesn't say that either.

Derek sips his hot chocolate and splutters quietly, raising both eyebrows dramatically.

"Stiles, is there alcohol in this?"

Stiles grins.

"What, your super nose couldn't tell you that?" He teases.

"It's the cream." Derek looks disgruntled. "It's in the way of my nose, acts like a damper. Pretty sure it's all I can smell right now."  
"Then yes. There may or may not be a shot of whisky in there." Stiles takes a sip of his drink and smirks into the mug. The burn from the whisky spreads through his chest, getting rid of the cold from the weather completely.

"You aren't trying to get me drunk, are you?" Derek jokes. Even though he's joking, pink creeps down Stiles' neck.

"Dude, no. I know you can't get drunk. But the warmth is nice and you did just get drowned out there." He points out the window, where the rain is still coming down heavily.

It's Derek's turn to blush, the tips of his ears pinking up. It's so _cute._

"Dude, you're killing me here." Stiles blurts.

"Hmm?" Derek scrunches up his face, confused. Oh man, Stiles is in so deep.

"Well. You know, the bunny teeth and the blushing, and you haven't threatened to rip out my throat with your teeth yet. It's kind of adorable." Stiles goes red as Derek stares.

"You think I'm adorable?" Stiles buries his face as far in his mug as he can.

"Er." Derek grins, and sips at his drink again, resurfacing with a dab of cream on his nose.

"Oh my _God._" Stiles says helplessly.

"What?" Derek is completely and utterly oblivious, blinking at Stiles blankly.

"You have cream on your nose." Stiles barely manages to refrain from squealing like a small child. Derek's nose is pink as he wipes the cream of and then proceeds to lick it off the back of his hand like a growly, stubbly cat.

"If you tell anyone, I will rip your throat out." He waits. "With my teeth."

"Whumph, there it is." Stiles crows. Derek sticks his tongue out. "Oh my _god, _ _are you five_?" Stiles shrieks.

"I don't know, Stiles. Do five year olds take whisky in their hot chocolate?" Derek's eyes sort of sparkle at the reparteé.

Stiles snorts in the remnants of his drink.

"Fuck." He mutters. Sliding off his stool, he rounds the corner of the island and hauls Derek closer by the front of his own t-shirt. "I'm going to kiss you now." He tells him. Derek grins, his bunny teeth prominent this close.

"Okay." He wraps a hand around the nap of Stiles' neck.

Stiles smirks. And then he puts his lips on Derek _freaking Hale's lips, _and it's sort of fantastic.

Because Derek is totally into it. He gasps into Stiles' mouth and gently sucks his lower lip between his teeth, pressing down oh so gently., hand flexing compulsively where it has slipped to rest in the crook of his shoulder.

Stiles breaks away to breath.

"Huh. You're way into me." He says. "Light bulb." He wonders if Derek has seen Despicable Me.

"How 'bout that." Derek says, kissing him and shutting him up. It turns out to be a very effective way of shutting Stiles up.

Derek makes sure to shut him up a lot.


End file.
